"I felt the calling of cross country and never looked back"

Through childhood, I was never the athletic one. So, the teasing came natural. Years and years of teasing came natural. Even when I chose athletics, it never stopped people from laughing at how I had fat rolls and sucked in my stomach to portray myself as skinny. As a result in 6th grade depression, constant anxiety, and anorexia took over my life from the words everyone said. That was until I heard about a team we had called cross country. Now being larger I never thought of running as fun at all. It was a daily chore we did during our workouts but I never preferred it. Though this was the case, I felt as though it was an odd calling. A signup sheet sat in front of me as I wrote my name, looking through the negative comments that I kept getting about going to being the slowest on the team. But the first practice came, I put one foot forward onto the grass, and I was hooked. I felt the calling of cross country and never looked back. Though starting out as the slowest on the team, I was happy for the first time in a really long time. I was losing the weight I wanted off, gaining much desired muscle, and defying all odds. So I kept with it through the thick and the thin. I kept thinking to myself it was worth it, I would be okay even if I didn't get recognition. Half way into my first season, the confidence came back also. The time of depression was over, the anxiety, gone, the anorexia, meh getting better, and life was okay. Now, fast forward a little to today, a junior in high school on his varsity cross country team for the second year in a row. Although freshman year I placed 421st in a meet, I was still happy and never looked at the past. I realized that first practice that it was where I belonged, my calling in school, my perfect place in life.

- Anonymous